New Queensland venue delivers strong results for Woonallee Simmental sale

Storms on the horizon at the Taroom Showgrounds brought buyer confidence for the first annual Woonallee Simmental Northern Performance bull sale on Thursday, October 15.

It was the first time the South Australian stud had hosted a sale in Queensland, previously holding its northern sale in Tamworth, NSW.

At the conclusion of the sale, 44 of all 48 bulls offered sold for a 92 per cent clearance and an $8864 average, for an overall gross of $390,000.

All remaining lots sold post-sale to bring the clearance to 100pc for an $8625 average.

The bulk buyer of the sale, Flinders Rural, Hughenden, purchased 12 head for an average of $6167 through AuctionsPlus.

The top-priced bull, Woonallee Nashville V192, sold for $35,000 to Kevin and Janice Hard, Naracoopa Simmental Stud, Denmark, Western Australia.

Sired by Woonallee Nashville N39 and out of Woonallee Ashante T208, the 1045 kilogram, 31-month-old bull recorded 11 millimetres of rump fat, 7mm of rib fat, an eye muscle area of 146 square centimetres, 5.3pc of intramuscular fat, 87pc morphology, and a scrotal circumference of 41cm.

Buyer Kevin Hard said he was a repeat buyer of Woonallee bulls, and had been chasing Nashville genetics for some time.

"I tried to buy one last year - Nashville, which is his sire," he said.

"But he made $60,000 odd, so I missed out on him.

"I spoke to Tom about it, and he said he was a very good bull. I've got a lot of respect for Tom as a cattleman, and he's done the right thing for us in the past.

"I never actually got over and saw the bull, only photos plus his figures.

"He's got figures, he's homozygous polled, and I think he'll fit into our stud perfectly."

Upon getting the bull home, Mr Hard said he'll join his herd of 40 breeders for stud duties.

At Denmark, Mr Hard breeds both traditional and Black Simmentals.

"It's not a real big stud, but it's what we want - we don't want to get any bigger," he said.

"We just work on 40 breeders and try and work on quality more than quantity.

"We won't use him until next March when we actually put the bulls out."

Of the bull, Mr Hard said he was the whole package.

"He's a bit smaller-framed than what we've had in the past, but he's got good fat cover, he's in the top 2pc, and his figures were very good," he said.

"He's got a below average birth weight, which is always good, and his growth weight and all that was all above the top 50pc, so that's what caught my eye about him, really."

Woonallee stud principal Tom Baker said he was extremely pleased with the results from the stud's first annual standalone sale in Queensland.

The stud had previously sold at multi-vendor sales in the state.

"Most of our bulls were coming up here anyway, and we were pretty mindful that it was so tough in Tamworth and it was so dry there that the cow herds [are] diminished there," he said when asked what prompted him to bring the sale to Queensland.

"It was very much bringing the bulls to the people.

"It's a really good start...I think there will be some very happy people.

"We're blessed that guys in the north supported us so well. It was a really good sale and a really good start.

"The first sale's always the hardest, and then we'll move on to the future."

• Selling agents: Elders and Linc'D, interfaced with AuctionsPlus.